You Can Host Your Own Website!

Well if you own a Mac you can! Actually you can probably do it on other systems in lots of other ways, but I am going to focus on what I used when I learned this...

Okay so I have this old PowerBook G4 which technically was the best available out there at the time but now unfortunately times change and I am now the proud owner of a dinosaur LOL! Luckily it's not too old to install the new operating system Thank God!

So after not touching my PowerBook for about two years(I use WinXP on my desktop which is my main computer), I decided to update it with Leopard OSX (version 10.5.7) and like I usually do, I went exploring on the new system. As I was looking through "System Preferences", under "Internet and Network" options there is a preference labeled "Sharing" and inside this folder, there are all kinds of neat ways to share your computer with other computers on your network and things like that. I noticed one of the options was labeled "Web Sharing" and so I clicked on it. It told me that the link to my personal website is http://199.000.0.000/~myname (okay that's not the real address but you get my point, it's basically IP address and your username.). So of course I had to go to that website and see what it said. It basically told me that this was the homepage of my own personal website and if I click that little web sharing option, then others would be able to see my webpage\website whenever I am online! How cool is that?

There is a folder in your user's folder with your name on it (Apple calls it your "home folder") and inside of that folder is another folder labeled "Sites" (so it's basically MacHD\Users\Your Name\Sites) and this is where you put all of your website files for your site. Right now, in my sites folder there is an index.html file and an images folder. The index file is basically the main page of your site and that is the first page you would edit to make your home page. Then you can add however many pages you like or photos, or even upload files for other people to download I believe. As long as your computer is online, people will be able to access your website. Just make sure you have Web sharing option on in your system preferences of course!
Also, I don't think this is specific to the Leopard Operating System. I'm just telling you what I was using and the instructions for that because I'm not completely sure about other systems. I do know that you can do it on Tiger and Panther but don't quote me on it!

I just thought this was a pretty cool thing and a lot of people don't seem to know about it. I didn't know! I just happen to be very nosy when it comes to certain things. I love to see how things work and find little tips and tricks. So I hope you all use us and send me your webpage if you want! I'd love to see what others have done!